EPT10 London: Lights, camera, camera, camera, camera, camera, action!

If timed rightly, even the most average poker player can appear on camera six times on their way to their seat.

Your first encounter with television comes as you arrive at the Grand Connaught Rooms. This is the advance camera team looking for that first smile, that first thumbs up or faux gang sign flashed by an enthusiastic zealot. Then at the top of the stairs a second team follows your progress as you walk the few steps into the tournament room, where there's another crew recording your arrival.

The lights are on

Further inside a fourth team awaits, picking out the notables as they remove their coats and take their seats, smiling. And if your seat is at the far end of the tournament room, you'll dodge a roving team, and one last static crew positioned to pick up any stragglers at the back.

This is of course all normal. And really only applies to Daniel Negreanu.

The Team PokerStars Pro obliges with each, even spotting non-TV crews of indiscriminate nationality, who he happily talks to before returning to take his seat. At this point he goes ultra-professional and pretends the crew watching him unfold a receipt to hand to the dealer are not actually there.

Others slip by unnoticed. Ruben Visser, who won here in Season 9, drifted through the crowds unmolested, and while Robert Bull was congratulated by fellow Brits for his win in the UKIPT main event yesterday, a quirk of fate had the cameras looking the other way.

Soon enough the cameras were all focused on EPT President Edgar Stuchly, who welcomed everyone to London. Back in season one, he said, John Shipley beat a field of 175 players to a first prize of £200,000. Since then some half a billion euros had been awarded to players. No cameras caught the look on the faces of some players, who seemed puzzled as to why none of that had been awarded to them.